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Address* • •  1867 


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ADDBESS 

BEFORE   THE 


"(Utility*  of  fjjptktt^  aitfr  ^urgjeans/' 


ANNUAL  COMMENCEMENT, 

JVCcuTGh  14t7if  1867. 


BY 

HE^RT    W.  BELLOWS, 

PRESIDENT    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES   SANITARY   COMMISSION 


Published  by  Bequest  of  the  Faculty  of  the  College.   \ 


8 

&  NEW    YORK  : 

Jv  JOHN  F.  TROW  &  CO.,  PRINTERS, 

<*&  50   GREEXE    STREET.  Lb 


A-IDIDIE^IESS 


BEFORE   THE 


U 


dalltgt  of  Itpttians  ano  burgeons/' 

AT  THEIR 

ANNUAL  COMMENCEMENT, 


BY 

SLEEKY   W.  BELLOWS, 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED   STATES  SANITARY  COMMISSION. 


Published  by  Bequest  of  the  Faculty  of  the  College. 


NEW    YORK : 
JOHN  F.  TROW  &  CO.,  PRINTERS, 

50   GREENE  STREET. 
1867. 


lap 


ADDRESS. 


Me.  President  and  Gentlemen  : 

I  eeel  myself  much  honored  in  being  permitted  to 
address,  on  this  distinguished  occasion,  the  College  of 
Physicians  and  Surgeons  in  the  City  of  New  York.  It 
is  a  privilege  as  well  as  a  duty,  for  the  learned  professions 
whenever  opportunity  offers  to  interchange  expressions 
of  sympathy  and  good-fellowship  in  the  presence  of  the 
public  ;  to  testify  to  the  esteem  in  which  they  hold  each 
other,  and  to  unite  more  closely  in  resisting  the  flood  of 
suspicion  or  depreciation,  which  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  ever  threatens  the  more  recondite  studies  and 
occult  interests  of  society. 

Around  the  bed  of  the  sick  or  dying  man,  stand  three 
indispensable  officials — the  physician  to  save  his  life,  or 
alleviate  the  sufferings  that  must  carry  him  to  his  grave  ; 
the  lawyer  to  enable  him  to  express  and  make  sure  of  the 
execution  of  that  last  will  and  testament  by  which  he 
provides  for  his  family,  pays  his  just  debts,  or  makes 
society  in  some  of  its  important  institutions,  the  heir  of 
his  fortune  ;  and  the  clergyman,  who  supports  his  sinking 
heart,  purges  his  conscience,  strengthens  and  clarifies  his 
faith,  commends  to  him  the  promises  and  consolations 
of  God's  Word,  or  gives  voice  to  his  penitence,  his  aspira- 
tions and  his  hopes  of  forgiveness  and  acceptance  in  the 
last  day.  And  these  three  professions,  thus  meeting  and 
culminating  at  the  acme  of  human  extremity,  and  equally 
important  in  their  bearings  on  the  safety  of  life,  property 


and  spirit,  are  learned  professions,  requiring  a  special  and 
erudite  training  for  their  proper  exercise — a  training  that 
cannot  be  fully  understood  by  those  who  do  not  pursue 
them,  and  which  is  always  in  danger  of  being  undervalued 
by  society  at  large. 

For  it  is  not  with  the  learned  professions — using  that 
phrase  in  its  now  venerable  significance — as  it  is  with  the 
other  vocations  which  by  universal  experience  are  con- 
ceded to  involve  a  technical  knowledge  and  skill  wholly 
beyond  the  reach  of  any  but  their  life-long  apprentices. 
The  products  of  the  useful  arts,  the  workmanship  of  the 
trades,  nay,  to  a  certain  extent  even  the  fruits  of  the 
studio,  are  things  which  appeal  to  the  senses  and  the 
common  judgment  of  men ;  their  utility,  in  some  sense,  is 
obvious;  their  relative  merit,  measurable.  Nobody, 
unless  driven  by  distress,  undertakes  to  be  his  own  car- 
penter or  plumber;  his  own  watch-maker  or  engine- 
builder,  his  own  optician,  or  practical  chemist,  or  makes 
his  own  logarithms  and  rules  of  navigation.  And  those 
amateurs  who  hang  up  their  own  paintings  or  erect  their 
own  sculptures,  or  even  build  their  own  houses,  commonly 
discover  sooner  by  that  proceES  than  any  other,  that  both 
native  genius  and  an  exclusive  devotion  to  the  Fine  Arts, 
are  essential  even  to  a  tolerable  success.  People  will  not 
go  to  sea  in  ships  built  by  any  but  professional  ship- 
builders, nor  buy  at  any  price  textures  or  fabrics  that 
come  from  any  but  experts  at  the  business. 

But  it  is  not  so  with  the  learned  professions.  These 
do  not  find  a  natural,  experienced  and  competent  jury  to 
try  their  merits,  in  the  public  at  large.  The  lawyer 
draws  his  papers,  not  to  satisfy  the  public,  but  to  satisfy 
the  Court  and  his  brother  lawyers.  The  theologian 
knows  that  the  people  at  large  are  no  fit  judges  of  the 
value  of  patristic  literature,  or  exegetical  criticism,  or 
comparison  of  Uncial  MSS.,  or  of  the  laws  that  govern 


the  tradition  of  distant  events ;  much  less  of  the  subtle 
value  of  ecclesiastical  institutions  and  sacred  symbols. 
The  physician  cannot  fully  explain  to  unprofessional 
persons  the  grounds  of  his  hopes  and  fears,  or  the  reasons 
of  his  treatment ;  far  less  the  nature  and  bearing  of  his 
chemical,  physiological  and  remoter  studies  upon  his  dia- 
gnosis or  his  therapeutics.  He  knows  very  well  that  he  is 
continually  guided  by  considerations  and  the  knowledge 
of  laws  and  facts  wholly  hidden  from  unprofessional  eyes, 
and  even  perhaps  the  very  reverse  of  what  is  popularly 
believed  or  is  apparent  to  the  senses.  And  all  the  profes- 
sions, in  their  own  studies  and  in  their  intercourse  each 
with  its  own  sons,  use  a  vocabulary,  scholastic,  technical, 
popularly  unintelligible  and  commonly  enough  supposed 
to  be  pedantic  and  affected — designed  more  to  cover  up 
ignorance,  excite  awe,  or  play  off  professional  airs,  than 
for  any  better  purpose.  "  Why,"  is  the  popular  cry  of  our 
own  day,  "  why  don't  the  lawyers  write  their  legal  papers 
out  in  plain,  ordinary  English  ;  why  don't  the  Doctors 
make  their  prescriptions  in  the  vernacular,  and  why  don't 
they  call  the  organs  and  muscles  and  functions  of  the 
body  by  the  titles  that  everybody  else  uses  ?  Why  do  the 
theologians  and  ministers  continue  to  use  the  musty 
phrases  of  the  Schoolmen,  or  even  the  antiquated  language 
of  the  Apostles, — or  to  maintain  the  traditions  of  the 
elders,  and  keep  up  the  pretension  that  a  minister  is  any 
thing  more  than  a  man  talking  about  Religion  with  other 
men  ? "  Now  we  do  not  hear  this  kind  of  superficial  talk 
about  engineering,  or  mining,  or  architecture,  or  music, 
or  any  of  the  useful  or  ornamental  arts.  People  know  that 
they  are  not  competent  judges  of  the  methods  used  there, 
while  they  are  pretty  competent  judges  of  the  results. 
They  know  a  good  pail,  without  the  least  ability  to  make 
one ;  or  a  good  razor,  or  a  good  wagon.  And  nobody 
expects  to  depreciate  the  trades  or  vocations  that  devote 


their  lives  to  learning  these  arts.  But  in  our  day,  most 
laymen  think  themselves  competent  theologians,— often 
much  better  indeed  than  the  professional  ones,  fair  lawyers, 
and,  specially,  good  doctors  !  How  often  have  I  heard  it 
said,  "  The  man  who  is  not  his  own  Doctor,  by  forty  years  of 
age,  don't  deserve  to  live  any  longer !  "  And  certainly  in  re- 
gard to  the  two  other  professions,  the  legal  and  the  clerical, 
the  feeling  is  on  the  increase,  that  Society  has  paid  too  much 
respect  to  their  assumptions  and  technical  learning  ;  that 
a  great  deal  of  pretension  has  been  covered  up  under  their 
forms  and  ceremonies,  and  that  good  ordinary  sense  is 
quite  adequate  to  judge  of  what  is  legal  and  right  in  the 
law,  and  what  is  true  and  important  in  theology.  Proba- 
bly in  our  country,  for  a  time,  this  feeling  will  increase. 
It  has  doubtless  much  apology  for  itself  in  the  necessity 
which  will  continue  to  exist  in  a  progressive  world,  inha- 
bited by  a  slowly  advancing  people,  of  every  now  and  then 
pulling  up  the  moorings  and  finding  a  new  anchorage.  It 
would  never  answer  to  allow  the  professions  to  escape 
wholly  the  criticism  of  common  sense,  or  the  spirit  of  the 
age ;  and  they  may  have  had,  or  probably  have  had,  at 
certain  times,  an  overweening  importance,  of  which  they 
took  advantage  to  go  to  sleep.  But,  founded  as  they  are 
in  the  interest  of  a  continuous  humanity — not  based  on 
the  experience  of  a  single  generation — bringing  v  n 
the  past,  and  handing  it  over  with  the  present  to  the  fu- 
ture, they  are  permanent  and  profoundly  important  inter- 
ests of  Society,  and  must  maintain  a  criticism  of  what  is 
called  common  sense,  as  well  as  submit  to  one ;  must 
shape  the  present  out  of  the  past,  as  well  as  be  modified 
in  shape ;  must  stand  for  deeper  things,  less  intelligible 
and  less  appreciable  things,  than  those  which  engage  the 
senses,  the  thoughts,  or  the  experience  of  the  present ;  and 
in  the  times  when  scholastic  learning,  or  recondite  studies, 
or  science  in  its  least  practical  forms,  or  philosophy  in  its 


more  subtile  speculations,  are  undervalued  and  overlooked, 
or  perhaps  sneered  at  and  set  aside, — must  stand  by  their 
culture ;  assert  the  dignity  and  importance  of  their  pur- 
suits, and  join  hands  with  the  inner  circle  of  those  profes- 
sional men  who  guard  the  sacred  altar  of  learning  from 
the  popular  storms  that  would  extinguish  its  flame,  and 
the  winds  that  would  mix  its  fragrant  ashes  with  the  com- 
mon dust  of  the  world. 

I  freely  confess  that  in  our  day  both  the  legal  and  the 
clerical  professions  seem  to  me  to  a  certain  extent  respon- 
sible for  the  decline  of  their  own  dignity.  They  have  both 
of  them  let  down  the  upper  bars  of  their  enclosures,  and 
made  it  very  easy  for  low  steps  and  short  statures  to  enter 
them.  Many  of  my  own  profession,  in  especial,  are  aid- 
ing to  degrade  it  by  shortening  or  popularizing  the  studies 
and  the  preparation  essential  to  make  scholars  and  theo- 
logians. It  is  a  short-sighted  policy,  whatever  necessity 
may  seem  to  excuse  it ;  and  so  is  that  other  concession  to 
popular  ignorance,  which,  by  making  our  Judges  elective, 
takes  from  the  Bar  the  inducement  to  study  upwards  to 
the  Bench,  and  enables  audacity,  glibness  and  tact  to  sup- 
plant learning  in  the  courts.  "We  shall  pay  dear  for  this 
shallow  demagoguism.  We  are  paying  dear  now,  when, 
with  a  Congress  full  of  lawyers,  we  find  so  little  compe- 
tent learning  and  wisdom,  prudently,  and  with  a  due  re- 
gard to  past  experience,  to  guide  our  legislation,  and  are 
obliged  to  notice  the  subjection  of  the  whole  country  to 
merely  popular  sweeps  and  caprices  of  opinion — as  if 
all  the  landmarks  were  disappearing,  and  the  past  had  no 
instruction  and  no  value. 

The  medical  profession,  I  am  glad  to  acknowledge,  is. 
in  my  humble  judgment,  the  rising  profession  of  the  day. 
It  is  in  a  greener  and  more  flourishing  condition  than  either 
of  the  others  ;  draws  into  its  ranks  more  of  the  genius  and 
intellectual  power  of  the  up-springing  generation ;  is  more 


favored  by  the  spirit  of  the  age,  which  is  marked  by  a 
preference  for  physical  and  practical  science,  and  has  less 
to  contend  with  from  the  radical  and  democratic  temper 
of  the  times.  The  scientific  philosophy  and  inquiry  of 
our  age,  which  threatens  Theology  so  seriously,  favors 
Medicine  in  the  same  ratio.  That  very  materialism  which 
alarms  the  clergy,  gives  a  new  importance  to  the  subjects 
and  the  methods  of  the  physicians.  "While  physical  philos- 
ophy, striving  to  shut  man  up  within  the  visible  universe, 
and,  with  its  scientific  positivism,  ignoring  all  ontology, 
and  reasoning  little  to  final  causes,  produces  a  terrible 
feeling  in  the  clerical  profession  of  the  decay  of  spiritual 
faith,  and  the  temporary  paralysis  of  those  nobler  instincts 
on  which  Religion  builds  its  holy  structure,  physics  and 
medicine — leaving  metaphysics  and  Divinity  to  make 
what  they  can  out  of  their  own  dismay  and  their  clouded 
weather — rejoice  in  the  harvest  which  invites  their  sharp 
and  shining  sickles — find  matter  gaining  most  that  mind 
has  lost,  the  physical  rising  as  the  metaphysical  subsides, 
and  their  own  pursuits,  investigations  and  inquiries  en- 
larged by  just  as  much  as  their  opposites  have  shrunk.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  so  much  real  metaphysics, 
and  so  much  genuine  spirituality,  were  never  applied  to 
medicine  as  in  our  own  day.  Never  so  much  as  in  our  own 
day,  when  no  distinction  is  possible  to  any  but  specialists, 
was  so  much  general  culture,  and  wide  and  many-sided 
thought  and  study  applied  to  the  science  of  medicine.  For 
specialists  rise  to  their  eminence  like  mountains,  by  the 
breadth  of  their  bases ;  and  there  is  no  rich  and  fine 
fruit  to  be  expected  from  any  branch  of  medicine  which 
does  not  grow  out  of  a  well-nourished  trunk,  rooted  in 
the  richest  and  most  cultured  soil  of  universal  thought 
and  wide-minded  and  open-eyed  observation. 

While   the  political,  philosophical   and    commercial 
aspects  of  the  age  have  damped  the  ardor  of  gifted  young 


men  for  law  and  theology,  they  have  increased  the  zeal 
for  all  the  physical  sciences  and  arts.  Engineering,  min- 
ing and  medicine,  have  lately  drained  our  colleges  of 
their  best  talent.  This  then  is  your  great  day,  ye  men  of 
healing,  and  well  have  yon  improved  it !  It  is  propitious 
to  all  the  learned  professions,  when  any  one  of  them  is 
prosperous  and  honored,  for  in  the  end  their  fortunes  are 
inseparable,  and  the  victories  and  attainments  of  each  will 
inure  to  the  general  advancement  of  learning  and  truth 
on  which  all  depend.  It  is  not  without  reason  and  neces- 
sity, that  physics  and  medicine  have  the  pas  in  our  day. 
Speculations  and  assumptions,  prejudices  and  prescrip- 
tions— the  wind-falls,  not  the  ripe  fruits  of  metaphysical 
and  theological  studies — had  no  doubt  gone  on  unchecked 
long  enough.  "What  distinguishes  the  age  is  the  return 
to  facts.~  And  of  course  the  most  visible  and  palpable 
facts  will  have  the  first  attention.  But  already  the  realm 
of  fact  is  found  to  be  considerably  wider  than  the  realm 
of  the  senses.  Physics  itself  is  not  identical  with  what 
can  be  seen,  or  measured,  or  weighed.  The  imponderables 
are  doing  the  work  of  the  world ;  electricity,  magnetism, 
chemistry,  and  physiology  are  discovering  that  the  dy- 
namic forces  are  not  only  mysterious,  but,  if  not  strictly 
spiritual,  so  near  it,  that  nobody  can  tell  the  precise  dif- 
ference. It  is  the  mission  of  medicine  and  physics  to 
do  away  the  absurd  idea,  that  Matter  and  Mind  are  nat- 
ural opposites  and  enemies ;  to  demonstrate  that  the 
Maker  of  the  universe — the  author  of  nature  and  man — 
dwells  unprofanely  in  the  material  as  well  as  in  the  im- 
material spheres  ;  and  that  metaphysical  science  is  insep- 
arable from  physical,  or  faith  from  knowledge,  or  God 
from  man. 

In  a  new  country,  the  medical  profession  represents, 
practically,  the  whole  interest  of  science,  both  theoretical 
and  applied.     A  large  part  of  all  our  naturalists,  physi- 


10 

cists,  geologists,  and  chemists,  have  been  educated  in  our 
Medical  Colleges ;  and  in  the  newer  parts  of  the  country, 
if  science  is  to  find  any  representatives,  it  must  be  in  its 
practising  physicians.  oSTow  if  there  be  anything  which 
is  needed- to  balance  the  intense  activity  of  the  American 
mind,  tending  everywhere  to  hasty  and  dangerous  con- 
clusions, it  is  scientific  habits  of  thought  and  exact  knowl- 
edge. There  is  a  universal  aptitude  for  thought,  and  a 
universal  habit  of  expression  in  this  country,  but  as  uni- 
versal a  distaste  for  patient  investigation,  careful  consid- 
eration and  cautious  conclusions.  We  lack  a  drill  and 
discipline  of  mind,  proportioned  to  its  tremendous  free- 
dom, volume  and  force.  In  other  countries  the  masses 
do  not  feel  themselves  entitled  to  opinions  ;  much  less  to 
ofl>hind  judgments  upon  the  most  important  subjects; 
and  consequently  their  credulity,  rashness  and  shallow- 
ness do  not  get  any  public  expression.  But  here,  one 
man's  opinion,  is,  in  his  own  judgment,  as  good  as  an- 
other's, and  no  question  is  so  hidden,  difficult  and  pro 
found,  that  he  is  not  likely  to  give  an  opinion  upon  it,  or 
lacking  his  own,  to  listen  to  any  body's  else  opinion,  and 
accept  it  according  to  its  plausibility.  The  country  is 
flooded  with  trashy  and  idle  notions,  taking  on  philosoph- 
ical names,  which  owe  their  contagious  spread  to 
the  fact  that  the  widest  interest  in  truth  and  the  mcst 
active-minded  curiosity  exists  in  America,  and  is  the 
prey  of  its  own  unscientific  education,  and  of  the 
pretenders,  enthusiasts  and  fanatics,  that  live  by  pan- 
dering to  it,  or  are  themselves  spawned  in  its  marshes 
of  rank  fertility.  E"ow,  it  is  only  medical  men,  who 
have  much  power  to  correct  this  perilous  tendency,  by 
their  influence  over  popular  education,  their  acquaintance 
with  the  sources  of  credulity,  and  the  causes  of  mental 
epidemics,  and  their  own  rooted  habits  of  cautious  and 
precise  investigation,  and  slow  and  measured  inference. 


11 

Let  the  people  be  taught  by  medical  men  the  unreli- 
ableness  of  their  own  senses  out  of  the  immediate  sphere 
in  which  they  are  wont  to  use  them  ;  let  them  under- 
stand the  tricks  of  their  own  nerves,  and  all  the  delu- 
sions short  of  insanity  which  the  imagination  plays  on 
unscientific  humanity ;  let  them  know  that  the  juggler 
who  tells  them  he  is  going  to  deceive  them  and  does  so — 
and  the  quack,  intellectual,  moral  or  medical,  who  tells 
them  he  is  incapable  of  deceiving  them,  and  then  pro- 
ceeds to  do  it,  work  by  the  same  legerdemain,  or  rather 
sleight-of-mind,  and  that  their  methods  are  both  founded 
on  well-understood  arts  of  thimble-rigging  either  the  at- 
tention of  the  mind  or  of  the  senses; — and,  just  as  far  as 
they  will  labor  and  strive  to  disseminate  these  facts,  the 
reality  and  force  of  which  none  but  medical  men  fully 
appreciate  and  understand — may  we  hope  to  free  our 
country  from  the  bad  reputation,  and  the  evil  effects,  of 
the  grossest  medical  superstitions  and  the  most  ruinous 
mental  and  moral  epidemics. 

It  would  be  ungrateful  to  me  to  close  this  address  with- 
out a  distinct  expression  of  the  gratitude  due  from  the 
country  to  the  medical  profession  for  its  great  and  glori- 
ous services  through  the  war.  The  clerical  and  the  medi- 
cal professions  went  shoulder  to  shoulder  through  that 
great  struggle,  having  perhaps  even  a  more  direct  call 
to  earnest  work  or  bold  expression,  than  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Bar.  The  whole  medical  force  of  the  coun- 
try, it  may  be  justly  said,  threw  itself  without  reserve 
into  the  field ;  and  if  army  surgeons  deserved  any  reproach, 
it  came  either  on  account  of  those  who  had  been  too  long  in 
the  service  in  time  of  peace  not  to  have  lost  the  real  temper 
of  the  profession,  or  from  those  half-fiedged  medical  vol- 
unteers whom  the  exigencies  of  the  case  threw  upon  the 
camps  and  hospitals.  As  a  rule,  I  can  testify,  after  as- 
extensive  opportunities  of  general  acquaintance  with  the 


12 

facts  as  most  men,  to  the  zeal,  faithfulness,  humanity  and 
patriotism  of  the  medical  profession,  throughout  the  war  ; 
and  I  suspect  the  country  is  only  very  imperfectly  ac- 
quainted with  the  hardships  and  the  sacrifices  of  the  army 
Surgeons,  and  the  claims  to  gratitude  which  as  a  class  they 
possess.  But  after  all,  the  chief  reward  which  the  medical 
profession  will  continue  to  derive  from  their  noble  and  de- 
voted labors  during  the  war,  is  that  priceless  impulse  and  op- 
portunity, which  so  vast  a  war  gave  the  science,  the  ob- 
servation, and  the  practical  skill  of  the  medical  profession. 
Never  was  a  whole  profession,  for  so  long  a  time,  under 
such  quickening  circumstances,  at  so  costly  or  so  instructive 
a  school !  It  will  take  a  half  century  to  realize  all  the  fruits 
of  its  experience  or  to  expend  the  force  of  the  impulse 
it  has  thus  received. 

And  now  forgive  me,  in  closing,  for  seizing  this  occasion 
to  express  to  the  medical  profession  the  pride  and  joy  I 
have  personally  felt  in  being  most  intimately  associated 
for  six  years  past  with  distinguished  representatives  of 
their  calling — passing  far  the  largest  portion  of  my 
leisure  in  their  society,  and  finding  myself  sometimes  half 
in  doubt  to  which  profession  I  belonged,  the  medical  or 
the  clerical.  I  should  have  been  a  dull  scholar  indeed 
not  to  have  learned  something  from  such  men  ;  and  I  say 
with  all  sincerity,  that  from  my  medical  associates  I  have 
received  new  conceptions  of  human  culture,  new  respect 
for  manly  honor  and  self-sacrifice,  and  new  happiness  in 
precious  and  undying  friendships. 


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